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Dessert

Bread Torte

A sweet cake made with powdered sugar, eggs, cinnamon, cloves, rye bread, cream, lemon, brandy, and optional chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Bread Torte

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg yolks and powdered sugar for 30 minutes.

  2. Add the cinnamon and cloves, and stir for a little longer.

  3. Mix in the grated rye bread, cream, lemon juice, lemon zest, and optional grated chocolate.

  4. Wet the grated rye bread with the brandy.

  5. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Cinnamon + ryetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together85 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg whites beaten stiff add lift and an airy structure, while yolks enrich the batter and help it set.
Rye bread
Grated crumbs soaked in brandy give body and a moist, dense texture to the torte.
Powdered sugar
Beaten with the yolks, it sweetens the batter and helps create a light, stable foam.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture, producing a richer, more tender crumb.
Brandy
Softens the bread crumbs so they blend evenly, and adds aroma.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stiffly beaten whites trap air that gives the torte its lift. Stirring them vigorously deflates the foam, leaving a dense result, so fold gently until just combined.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, cinnamon, clove, cream, rye, bread):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, cinnamon, clove, cream, rye, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More bread torte recipes

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